Perceived Intelligence Is Associated with Measured Intelligence in Men but Not Women

Abstract

BackgroundThe ability to accurately assess the intelligence of other persons finds its place in everyday social interaction and should have important evolutionary consequences.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used static facial photographs of 40 men and 40 women to test the relationship between measured IQ, perceived intelligence, and facial shape. Both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by viewing facial photographs. In addition to general intelligence, figural and fluid intelligence showed a significant relationship with perceived intelligence, but again, only in men. No relationship between perceived intelligence and IQ was found for women. We used geometric morphometrics to determine which facial traits are associated with the perception of intelligence, as well as with intelligence as measured by IQ testing. Faces that are perceived as highly intelligent are rather prolonged with a broader distance between the eyes, a larger nose, a slight upturn to the corners of the mouth, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin. By contrast, the perception of lower intelligence is associated with broader, more rounded faces with eyes closer to each other, a shorter nose, declining corners of the mouth, and a rounded and massive chin. By contrast, we found no correlation between morphological traits and real intelligence measured with IQ test, either in men or women.ConclusionsThese results suggest that a perceiver can accurately gauge the real intelligence of men, but not women, by viewing their faces in photographs; however, this estimation is possibly not based on facial shape. Our study revealed no relation between intelligence and either attractiveness or face shape.

Social Attributions from Faces: Determinants, Consequences, Accuracy, and Functional Significance

“…In the latter case, more trustworthy-looking faces are less attractive. Similar methods with convergent results have been developed by other research groups (Kleisner et al 2013(Kleisner et al , 2014Sakuta et al 2009;Walker & Vetter 2009;Walker et al 2011). Moreover, some of these models can be applied to real images of faces that can be manipulated to evoke specific social attributions (Walker & Vetter 2009).…”

Enzyme replacement for craniofacial skeletal defects and craniosynostosis in murine hypophosphatasia

“…If mineral-targeted TNAP is able to diminish skull and facial skeletal shape abnormalities in patients, this treatment could be an important augmentation to surgeries used to separate fused cranial bones. Facial shapes influence perceived intelligence and dominance, and improvement in craniofacial deformity enhances quality of life [53–55]. …”

No relationship between intelligence and facial attractiveness in a large, genetically informative sample

“…A serious limitation of the Denny (2008) and Kanazawa (2011) studies is that the raters of attractiveness were familiar with targets’ intelligence, leading to potential rater biases that may have artificially induced the correlation under investigation [e.g., see Moore et al (2011) for a demonstration of an intelligence ‘halo’ effect on perceived attractiveness.] Most recently, Kleisner, Chvátalová, and Flegr (2014), using reliable, independently collected measures of intelligence and facial attractiveness, failed to find a statistically significant correlation in either male or female young adults. However, this study, like those of Zebrowitz and Rhodes (2004) and many studies included in Jackson et al’s (1995) and Langlois et al’s (2000) meta-analyses, utilized a very small sample, rendering its results somewhat inconclusive.…”